compaffion; as it is the part of improved humanity to humor this honest pride in our nature, and to relieve the neceffities without offending the delicacy of the diftreffed.

I HAVE feen charity (if charity it might be called) infult with an air of pity, and wound at the fame time that it healed. But I have seen too the highest munificence difpensed with the most refined tenderness, and a bounty conferred with as much address as the most artful would employ in foliciting one. Suffer me, Orontes, upon this fingle occafion, to gratify my own inclinations in violence to yours, by pointing out the particular inftance I have in my view; and allow me, at the fame time, to join my acknowledgments with those of the unfortunate perfon I recommended to your protection, for the generous affistance you lately afforded him. I am, &c.

LETTER

LETTER

To CLEOR a.

LXVI.

Sept. 5, 1737

HALL I own to you that I cannot re

SHALL of an offence which occafioned me

fo agreeable a reproof? A cenfure conveyed
in fuch genteel terms, charms more than it
corrects, and tempts rather than reforms.
I am fure at leaft, tho' I fhould regret the
crime, I shall always admire the rebuke,
and long to kifs the hand that chasteneth in
fo pleasing a manner. However, I fhall
for the future ftrictly pursue your orders,
and have sent you in this fecond parcel no
other books than what my own library fup-
plied. Among these you will find a collec-

tion of letters. I do not recommend them
to you, having never read them; nor in-
deed am I acquainted with their characters:
but they presented themselves to my hands
as I was tumbling over fome others; fo I
threw them in with the rest, and
gave
them
a chance of adding to your amusement. I
wish I could meet with any thing that had

even

even the least probability of contributing to mine. But

forlorne of thee, Whether fhall I betake me, where fubfift?

MILT.

Time that reconciles one to most things, has not been able to render your abfence in any degree less uneafy to me. I may rather be faid to haunt the house in which I live, than to make one of the family. I walk in and out of the rooms like a restless spirit: for I never speak till I am spoken to, and then generally answer, like Banquo's ghoft in Macbeth, with a deep figh and a nod. Thus abftracted from every thing about me, I am yet quite ruined for a hermit, and find no more fatisfaction in retirement than you do in the company of ***.

How often do I wish myfelf in poffeffion of that famous ring you were mentioning the other day, which had the property of rendering those who wore it invifible! I would rather be mafter of this wonderful unique, than of the kingdom which Gyges gained by means of it; as I might then attend you like your guardian angel, with

out

power

out cenfure or obftruction. How agreeable would it be to break out upon you, like Æneas from his cloud, where you leaft expected me; and join again the dear companion of my fortunes, in spite of that relentless who has raised so many cruel storms to destroy us! But whilft I employed this extraordinary ring to these and a thousand other pleasing purposes, you would have nothing to apprehend from my being invested with fuch an invifible faculty. That innocence which guards and adorns my Cleora in her moft gay and public hours, attends her, I well know, in her most private and retired ones; and the who always acts as under the eye of the Best of Beings; has nothing to fear from the fecret inspection of any mortal. Adieu.

LET

LETTER

LXVII.

To EUPHRONIUS.

May 5, 1743

Fi

F you received the first account of my lofs from other hands than mine; you muft impute it to the dejection of mind into which that accident threw me. The blow, indeed, fell with too much severity, to leave me capable of recollecting myself enough to write to you immediately; as there cannot, perhaps, be a greater shock to a breast of any fenfibility, than to see its earliest and most valuable connexions irreparably broken; than to find itself for ever torn from the first and most endeared obje& of its highest veneration. At least, the affection and esteem I bore to that excellent

parent, were founded upon fo many and fuch uncommon motives, that his death has given me occafion to lament not only a most tender father, but a most valuable friend.

THAT I can no longer enjoy the benefit of his animating example, is one among the many aggravating circumstances of af

my fliction ;